Scope and Contents

Approximately four linear feet of DPMO files, correspondence, newsletters, and clippings document Freddie Joel Ransbottom's Vietnam War service with the Long Range Recon Platoon, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division in 1968 and the battle at Kham Duc on 11 May 1968 where he went missing in action (MIA) until his remains were discovered by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in the Kham Duc area in March 2006. The clippings and newsletters relate to general POW/MIA issues as well as relating to Ransbottom's case. Also included in the collection are multiple volumes of 'Uncorrelated Information Relating to Missing Americans in Southeast Asia.'

Biographical / Historical

Freddie Joel Ransbottom was born on 19 September 1946 in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Putnam City High School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1965 and attended Oklahoma Baptist University before enlisting in the United States Army. Ransbottom received his commission in the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant at the Officer's Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia. He went to South Vietnam as a First Lieutenant in January 1968 and commanded the Long Range Recon Platoon, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. On 11 May 1968 he went missing in action after a battle at Kham Duc where his unit was attacked by nearly 5,000 North Vietnam Army (NVA) regulars. Ransbottom's remains were finally discovered by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in the Kham Duc area in March 2006.